


Epomis

by HenryMercury



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Bugs & Insects, Character Study, Dark Geraldine, F/F, F/M, Mommy Issues, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:54:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28890162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: You’ve long since come to terms with being the least-observed person on Carolyn Martens’ earth. A great disappointment at first, but a unique privilege thereafter.
Relationships: Helene/Geraldine, Konstantin Vasiliev/Geraldine, Raymond/Geraldine
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	Epomis

**Author's Note:**

> Since the recent poll on the bird app revealed that KE fandom's #3 and #4 most beloved characters are, in indisputable fact, Geraldine and Raymond, I've decided to shamelessly pander to the masses by writing this cursed fic.
> 
> Features second person Geraldine plus lots of entomological metaphors just to make it extra enjoyable. 
> 
> Let it never be said I deprive the people of what they want.

You chose the hotel for its panoramic views of the city. Up here in the penthouse suite, you feel your proper height again, unfurled from the stoop of your recent endeavours—diverting though your holiday with Carolyn was. Being _explicitly_ asked to leave was a new joy, albeit one you wish hadn’t come at the cost of a perfectly good little brother.

On the television, the lioness captures the gazelle. She drags it, kicking, down into the dry savanna grasses. It takes some time for the kicking to stop. You top up your heavy crystal highball with the second half of the bottled kombucha you ordered from room service, and sip along as the predator paints her face red with her catch.

You get your love of nature documentaries from Mum—though of course she’d find a way to argue otherwise. Ms Soothing-Frog-Noises would say that her interest is purely academic, while yours stems from a desire to emotionally overinvest in each of Sir David’s little creature storylines. That she watches out of regard for the predators and you out of sympathy for the prey.

You’ve long since come to terms with being the least-observed person on Carolyn Martens’ earth. A great disappointment at first, but a unique privilege thereafter.

Sinking back into the luxurious _Boca do Lobo_ chaise, the sound of the television washes over you. The lions are soothingly predictable.

There is an insect—the Epomis beetle—which interests you more. Fully-grown, it attacks from behind, deliberately slicing into amphibians’ jumping mechanisms until they’re paralysed. A timeless stab in the back. Something Carolyn would understand.

The _young_ of the species, however, are the more remarkable. Still no more than a worm, the larva hunts frogs. Makes the wriggling, waving movements of a victim-to-be until the frog notices and strikes—only to find the larva immovably attached and draining the life out of it.

People like Carolyn believe they understand the game in full with their double meanings, double crosses and double bluffs. Her generation are well-versed in the classical theories of espionage, the Cold War art of spying—but in practice they never _quite_ understand that sometimes the best offence is a really _bad_ defence.

When you were eight and Dad was away on yet another work trip, Mum forgot to pick you up from after-school crafts. (Forgot to organise some neighbour or local babysitter to do it in her stead.)

Ever the optimist, you decided to walk home—knowing the route but not quite comprehending the reality of a six kilometre trudge in the falling dusk. Some way down the darkened road you decided it was time to ask for help. Teachers and TV programmes were always stressing the importance of seeking and giving help where it was needed, weren’t they? And was it still stranger danger if _you_ were the one approaching _them_?

Glittery collage in hand, you strode down the front path of a house that had a lovely rose garden out the front and a nice wooden letterbox the shape of a tiny cabin. Nice people must live there, you reasoned.

The woman who opened the door was indeed nice. Blonde, small in stature and wearing a cooking apron that had pictures of vegetables printed on it.

“Excuse me,” you asked her ever-so-politely, “may I please use your telephone?”

The nice lady, Cathy, gave you cheese and water biscuits while you waited for Mum to drive over from wherever she was. Cathy was making dinner for her husband Raymond (who was drinking beer and watching the news), and their nephew Joseph (who was doing homework and, as it turned out, was a year ahead of you at school). They were so normal that, by the time Carolyn arrived, you felt sort of strange about it.

She told you not to go back to their house, and made sure you had money for the bus from then on. You went back anyway, whenever Dad wasn’t around and you were forgotten. A small act of revenge, perhaps, or just a desire to further explore the strangeness that being there illuminated inside you.

Also, Cathy and Raymond never saw you on their doorstep and said _Oh,_ like they were surprised to find you still existed. Joseph waved and said _Hello Geraldine,_ when he saw you on the playground at school.

You learned about pity quite early on. It was what Mum felt for you, where Dad felt love. What you felt for a stray cat down the road, and for the maimed bird it brought you one Sunday afternoon. What a lot of people felt for you and Mum and Kenny when Dad died. Cathy felt it too, although she hid it better than the rest: to know, you had to catch her whispering frantically with Raymond one evening as you nibbled homemade chocolate brownies and did your homework at their dinner table.

_She’s clearly not happy at home, poor thing. What harm can we possibly be doing by feeding her and showing her a little love when she comes to us?_

You were their stray cat.

Emotions came easily to you. Not just your own, but those of others. A book you borrowed from the school library called it hyper-empathy. It made people easy to understand, to predict, to cater to when it suited you. It could also make them a lot to bear.

The more time you spent around him, the more you realised Raymond didn’t feel pity. Not for anyone, you included. For a time that was nice; a break in the waves of it that poured off the rest of them and onto you, drowning out the self you were trying to nurture. For a time, the chill behind his eyes served to soothe the ache of your bleeding heart.

You think about Raymond now—whatever bits of him the Twelve managed to scrape off the floor of that Roman hotel. A waste, sure, but not quite a pity.

You learned about the Twelve in substance long before you learned the name. People—even Mum—were easier to read than they knew. Carolyn loved Kenny and she loved Konstantin, the Russian man with the beard and the enormous laugh. Neither love was unreserved. Carolyn and Konstantin sometimes pretended to be friendly when they were not. They talked about ‘work’ in a coded way that only made them more obvious. The password on Mum’s computer wasn’t as good as she thought it was, and between your teenage self and Kenny’s it was quite possible to poke around in her things.

 _Mum’s a spy? Like in the movies?_ he whispered as you scrolled through scanned pages so heavily redacted all you could read was the occasional ‘and’. He was hooked. You were too.

 _That seems dangerous,_ you replied. Backing down. Playing at letting him have it. _Do you think we’re in danger because of this?_

Kenny went to Mum and she was proud of him. Clever Kenny, useful Kenny. Part of you knew she wouldn’t have been so proud if it was you who’d owned up to snooping. You never found out whether he told her you’d done it along with him, but she never brought it up if he had.

When Raymond asked offhandedly what your mum did and you told him she worked for the secret service, he didn’t seem surprised.

“Can you keep a secret?” he asked conspiratorially, and you told him you could. “I work for a secret organisation too. A better one than British intelligence, I think.”

“Is it the Russians? Or the CIA?”

Raymond shook his head.

“Are you a terrorist?”

“Do I look like a terrorist to you?”

He didn’t. In his tan bomber and white button-down he just looked like somebody’s dad, watching the football while his wife knitted tiny yellow socks for their new baby.

“In fact,” he continued, “my organisation is always looking for new talent. We recruit quite a few girls just like you: clever ones, with loyalty and an eye for detail. I think we could really use you—if that mum of yours hasn’t snatched you up already?”

And there it was: the sticky tongue of the frog darting out to snag what seemed like an easy meal.

When you went away to university at eighteen, it was him who drove across the country to drop you off. _A friend_ , you told Carolyn, who couldn’t care less. You were majoring in Drama with minors in Mandarin Studies and World Religion.

Raymond carried your suitcase to your new room and shut the door behind himself.

“I’m afraid I have to leave you with a reminder,” he said slowly, “of what will happen if you start to think about… _changing your allegiance_.”

A backward step and your spine met the wall. His hand came up to your throat—stubby fingers encircling and squeezing—and the way he watched it happening… For almost the first time, you detected an emotion rolling off him. A release of sadistic pleasure that sliced through you equally. You gaped up at him, face tight with blood and eyes wide, pleading. As preylike as he’d ever seen. The more you struggled, the more pathetic you seemed, the higher Raymond soared—and the more you drank it in, drained it out of him like blood from a frog.

You kissed him, lightheaded, mirroring his arousal back at him tinged with a promise of blackmail he wouldn’t taste until later. Poor Cathy. Their poor kids. Like the Epomis larva, you latched on with your mouth and never let him escape you.

In the days that followed, you remember pulling at your turtleneck in front of the mirror, inspecting the pattern of bruises. A perfect instruction manual to the man who’d taken so many years to betray himself to you. Not at all the message he’d thought he was imparting.

In the present, your kombucha has run out. The next instalment of the documentary has begun and is offering up facts about the reproductive lives of insects. The praying mantis, obviously. The black widow, also a cliché.

Your phone rings. You mute the television and answer.

“Hello, darling,” says Hélène. “How was London?”

“Tense,” you tell her. “Ready to combust.”

You hear her little sigh and it’s as if you feel the shiver that’s running through her.

You continue: “Utter chaos.”

“Well done. I thought you ought to know Paul’s dead.”

“Oh?” you ask, not pretending to be surprised. “Shame. And Konstantin?”

“Scuttled back into hiding. A real cockroach, that one.”

Privately, you still rather like Konstantin; however disadvantageous an asset he’s become, you enjoy the range of emotion he exhibits. A whole spectrum where the likes of Raymond and Hélène exist in only greyscale and red. He likes you, too, not that he can figure out how. Are you the near-daughter he taught naughty words to at dinner parties? Or are you the outward facsimile of a young Carolyn, timid and begging him to take control the real Carolyn would rather die than cede?

Mum would never forgive him for fucking you. You knew that, and he knew that, and it was that thought that got you off when you did it anyway.

On-screen, spiderlings cannibalise their mother. Matriphagy, this is called. You don’t need the sound on to know.

“I would like to see you in Berlin next week,” Hélène is saying. “I’m hosting a gathering.”

 _Party_ isn’t quite the word for Hélène’s… events. The woman views sex and violence as spectator sports. You can understand this better than most. Periodically, she’ll arrange a selection of strangers and an expensive rental house with a grand formal dining room, serve cocaine and hallucinogens like hors d'oeuvres, and observe the descent into orgiastic chaos atop the long hardwood table like a writhing human charcuterie board. Sometimes she serves the board with something sweet, other time with a knife.

You’ll sit with Hélène to one side, feeling the way she relaxes while watching whatever scene unfolds before them. There is satisfaction, but never any urge to participate beyond sliding a hand across to trace along the inside of your thigh or bidding you kneel between her knees.

Hélène may she loves chaos, but what she really loves is the opposite: _control._

“Of course,” you tell her. “You know how I love your soirées.”

She is your handler, now—or so she believes. So they all do, the pillar-figures of this organisation. Men and women who take what they want without thinking of others’ feelings, and call that power. Feelings, Carolyn would say, are a liability. She is right, but she is also very wrong. Emotion is just another language—one people must speak themselves to understand. It’s another form of information, and information is everything.

**Author's Note:**

> tweet @hhhenrymercury or don't


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